Saturday, August 31, 2013

Potted Roselle Pant

I like Roselle, I called them Ribena Plant before knowing the name, Actually it is, till today, conveniently referred to as Ribena. However, Roselle and the store bought Ribena syrup are two different things although similar in taste. Roselle is in actual fact, a wild hibiscus cultivar.

Roselle, I love this name, it is feminine, and the beautiful pinkish flower is definitely feminine too. The flowers have a blood red centre, opening light yellow in the morning and turning a gorgeous pink as they wither off by mid-day, and then close up and drop off later in the day. Fruits start to grow bigger and bigger.

I bought the plant in seeding, it has grown into a really bushy plant after 2 months time. It is now producing many dark red buds on the stem. However this plant needs as much sunlight as possible, I had failed the previous growing experience as I placed the potted Roselle in a shady place. Roselle requires well-draining soil, Water regularly when young but mature plants are quite drought tolerant . When the plant was about a foot in height, I fed it with some fertiliser once every 2 weeks. Stop fertilising once it starts to bear fruit buds.

I have seen a Roselle plant grow to a height of more than 7 feet tall and send branches out to 3-4 feet wide. There are limited growing in a container, so try to get a bigger container for Roselle, as it can get rather bushy, do not prune it, fruits will grow all along the stem right to the tip of each branch.

Each fruit is made up of conjoined calyces with pointed tips which enclose inside it, a pod that contains many black seeds when mature.

Harvest time...

I plug out the calyces from the fruit capsules and soak them into water for about half an hour before making Roselle juice, which is rich in vitamin C.

Wash, drain and cut calyxes (mine is about 20 pieces) into smaller pieces and put them into boiling water (about 2.5 litres). Add some sugar. Done!
The taste is just like Ribena drink.
Unused fresh calyxes can be sun dried and stored in an airtight container for next time use.

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3 comments:

Hi, I am growing Roselle in my garden too, it been more than a month after blooming of flower an it remained in the form of bud and not mature into red fleshy calyx. May I know how long it takes to grow from bud into mature fleshy red calyx? What wrong with my Roselle? Besides that, my Roselle was being attack by Mealy bug also, no idea how to get rid of it..sigh